Llevame Contigo was nominated for a 1998 Grammy Award for Best Tropical Latin Performance.

Personnel: Olga Ta¤¢n (vocals).

After a rash of consecutive hits throughout 1994 and 1995, the reigning Queen of Merengue, Olga Ta¤¢n, took a break from tropical music, releasing an album of Marco Antonio Sol¡s songs, Nuevos Senderos. This puzzled hardcore fans, no doubt, even if her off album was a good one, albeit subdued and strongly Mexican in character. So when she returned to tropical music in 1997 with Ll‚vame Contigo, it was with considerable anticipation, to say the least. And return Ta¤¢n did, releasing an album that reprised everything wonderful about her best early-'90s music. Ll‚vame Contigo includes songs by all those who had penned her best songs on past albums: Yaidelice Monrrozeau (who had written "Contigo o sin Ti") contributes two songs, "El Fr¡o de Tu Adi¢s" and "As¡ Es el Amor"; Rodolfo Barreras ("Es Mentiroso") turns in a pair; Raldy V zquez ("Una Noche Mas") also turns in a pair; and Gustavo M rquez ("Entre la Noche y el D¡a") returns, too, with "Porque No Te Encontr‚." Ll‚vame Contigo easily became Ta¤¢n's most successful album yet, topping the Latin Albums chart and spinning off one hit after another, chief among them "El Fr¡o de Tu Adi¢s." Hardcore fans consistently rank Ll‚vame Contigo alongside Siente el Amor... and Mujer de Fuego as Ta¤¢n's best. Song for song, it's not as solid as Siente el Amor..., which was near-perfect from beginning to end. However, Ll‚vame Contigo is definitely more diverse, in terms of songwriting as well as music, and it includes more songs. So if it's not as consistently stellar as Siente el Amor..., it's more broadly appealing. This age-old debate aside, Ll‚vame Contigo is first-rate, any way you look at it, and it's the last beginning-to-end tropical album Ta¤¢n would record for years, as she would court pop-crossover success on subsequent albums, to generally mixed results, unfortunately. ~ Jason Birchmeier